Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for laying out images, which are stored and managed, according to a template.
Description of the Related Art
A technique for creating a photo album by laying out images on a template is known. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-005886 describes a method that estimates images having larger numbers of display times and longer display times as those having higher importance degrees, and selecting those images.
However, the aforementioned conventional technique suffers the following problem.
Using only manual preference degrees as with the arrangement in the '886 document, a layout that really matches a user's preference cannot always be created. This is because manual preference degrees suffer slight errors depending on set timings. For example, when the user took photos in an event and set preference degrees on that day or set them some time later, evaluations include slight errors. This is because one determines manual preference degrees based on his or her sentiment at that time, and evaluations are not automatically determined. Therefore, even when the same preference degree is set for some images, actual preferences are often different, and although one likes images to similar degrees, different preference degrees are often set. That is, even when a layout using only manual preference degrees is created in disregard of this fact, it is created using images having higher preference degrees set by the user, and is not a layout preferred by the user.